Raiders of the Lost Stark
by SpringsEternal78
Summary: A crime has been committed in the Tower. You remember at the beginning of Raiders when Indy does that weight transfer so he can nick off with the artefact? It's a lot like that. Only what's stolen is far more unusual, and infinitely more precious…


Author's note: Hi! I'm back! Turns out when you're studying for a degree you actually have to (gasp!) study. Anyway, this story was a daft thought that made me laugh so I thought I'd share. Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Own nothing.

Tony woke to an empty bed. He'd heard Pepper get a phonecall and leave earlier; he'd just turned over and gone back to sleep. Curious to know when he was likely to see her next, he asked Jarvis about it as he got out of bed, stretching his arms over his head as he made his way to the bathroom. She had been called into a meeting with one of their large overseas clients and probably wouldn't be back until tomorrow. He regretted not saying goodbye to her, however long ago it was, so he picked up his phone from where he'd left it by the sink the previous night and typed a rather succinct message to her. _Bye. _He hit 'send' and set about brushing his teeth. Midway through, he received a reply identical to his sentiment. _Bye :-D_

He didn't notice anything. He brushed his teeth. And flossed (because charismatic billionaires need _all _their teeth for devastating smiles and such). And nothing was wrong. Nothing was different. Not a damn thing. Not until he bent down to wash his face, splashing the water and… He stood up abruptly, saw his face in the mirror and let out a strangled yelp.

His beard. His patented Tony Stark facial hair was gone! Someone had shaved it off! Someone evil. Someone so evil that not only had they shaved it off, _while he slept_, but they had then _drawn it back on in black felt tip pen!_ He touched the ink to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him but true enough, it was a facial imposter. And it was ever so slightly wonky. He gave it a vigorous rub with his fingers, trying to scrub it off but it didn't so much as blur a little. Permanent ink. The _fiend! _Who would do this?How could they? _Why _would they? "Jarvis?" he commanded.

"Yes, sir?"

He pointed emphatically at his own face and the thing that had taken up residence on it. "Who did this?"

"I'm afraid I cannot divulge that information, sir."

"_What?! _Why not?" he demanded.

"I have been sworn to secrecy, sir."

"Wh- Not from _me!_" Tony cried, aghast. "You can't keep secrets from me, you're not even capable of it! Not without my say-so and I, clearly, did not do this!"

"I'm sorry, sir. Can I order you breakfast from Giuliana's Bakery?"

"No! I don't want any breakfast! I wanna know who did this to my _face_, Jarvis!" he yelled. He leaned close to the mirror to inspect it mournfully. He released a quiet whimper before glaring at the ceiling, where he sometimes imagined Jarvis to be. "How can you not tell me?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Alright, if you apologise to me again without giving me a proper answer, you are in big trouble, mister," he warned with a threatening fingerwag. He pointed at the ink again. "This. Who? Now."

There was a brief pause, and Tony waited with his breath held.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Uaagh! Fine, just gimme last night's surveillance from the hallway."

"Those records have been erased, sir."

Tony blinked. "That's impossible. There's no such thing as 'erased'. Not when I'm around."

"And yet I assure you, sir: they have."

A frown furrowed his brow. "That's… That's not… It can't… Who could do this?! That's rhetorical; don't apologise!" he ordered before Jarvis could get any ideas. His expression darkened. He had suspects to consider…

Half an hour later, he was sitting in one of his favourite labs with his feet up on the desk and a pout of deep thought on his face. (Among other things…) He liked this lab because it was smaller than the others. It felt comparatively cosy, and secret. With the doors locked and the privacy settings frosting the windows, it was the perfect place to mull things over away from prying eyes. He opened the Giuliana's Bakery paper bag and pulled out a cronut. He hadn't forgiven Jarvis but he wasn't made of stone. Besides, he had a crime to solve, and the New York police force functioned on pastries right? Right.

His first thought (and he'd wonder later exactly what this said about their relationship) was Pepper. Her absence was deeply suspicious. 'Overseas client', huh? 'Called to a meeting',_ huh? _A likely story. Not only that, but she had the best overnight access to his face. She was right next to him for most of the night. After that, things sort of fell apart. What was her motive? Alright, that was fairly moot, she always had motive to get back at him for something, but why take it out on the beard? He had it on good authority that she liked his beard. But then most murder victims were killed by someone close to them… He picked up his phone and looked again at that last text: _Bye :-D _That smiley face had looked so innocent at the time. Now it seemed to say _'I'm in Stockholm and I have your beard. Bwahaha!'_

He drew up the footage from last night's surveillance. It cut out at midnight and resumed at 6 am. There was so sign of Pepper leaving on what recording was left, so she'd obviously gone some time during the 'blackout'. How convenient. The surveillance hadn't just been cut from the corridors outside, they were gone from the entire interior and the exterior of the Tower. But it wasn't too far out of his way to hack traffic cameras and find Pepper's car leaving the vicinity just before 5. He slumped low in his chair, munching his cronut in what he considered a seasoned-detective-type fashion. Pepper could never have pulled this off. She was a business genius and she could hold her own with his more accessible tech but there was absolutely no way she could erase surveillance footage to this depth, or somehow convince Jarvis to keep information from him. That was more like something a superspy could do!

Natasha. Natasha didn't need a great deal of motive. Heck, maybe she was just bored that night and decided to torture him. She was annoyingly good with computers and she had super-slinky sneaking skills. Not that he'd been looking at her slinkiness. (Or should that be Her Slinkiness? Like a royal.) It wasn't quite what he expected from her in a prank though. As dastardly as it was. As a concept, the theft of his beard (and the slight skew of its replacement) smacked more of Hawkeye. He froze mid-bite. Maybe they were in this together. Yes. The sounded right. Ah hah! Now all he had to do was confront them about it and let them know that, spies or not, nothing got past Tony Stark. He had figured them out. He got to his feet, ready to walk out.

"Jarvis, where are Natasha and Clint right now?" he asked, triumphant.

"On a classified mission, sir."

Tony paused. "Oh." He'd been expecting somewhere a little closer to home, like 'downstairs'. "Where? What country?"

"I don't have that information."

"Okay, what continent then?"

"Africa."

"_Africa?_" he repeated. "What time did they leave?"

"They exited the building at 10:47 last night, sir."

"Show me." The surveillance footage confirmed it. He sat back down. "Not Natasha and Clint," he muttered to himself. "Who else could manipulate my tech?" His eyes widened. "Bruce?"

No. Surely not. That was ridiculous. How could he even entertain the possibility that gentle, sweet-natured Bruce Banner could have anything to do with something as unspeakable as the theft of a man's facial property? He located Bruce in one of the Tower's kitchens and pulled up surveillance, the screen instantly displaying live images of the doctor reading the newspaper. He blew on and sipped his coffee, lightly adjusting his reading glasses. Tony raised a hand to his jaw and thoughtfully massaged his… Oh. He felt sad.

He crammed in the rest of his cronut and stood with renewed determination. It was time to return to the scene of the crime and collect some evidence. Whoever had done this would be brought to justice. He left his lab and strode off down the hall and pushed the button for the elevator. He waited impatiently, tapping his foot. When the doors slid open, they revealed Thor standing inside with his arms crossed over his chest. "Good morning, friend Stark!" he greeted warmly.

"Is it?" Tony asked shortly, stepping into the lift beside the Asgardian and pushing the button for the floor his living quarters were on.

"Yes," Thor answered with confidence. "Captain Rogers and I have just returned from an inter-realm relations conference that I believe went very well. We are considering hosting the next one in Asgard." Tony suppressed a huff. Was _anyone _here last night? Thor squinted at him, perplexed. "There is something different about you," he noted curiously. "Did you sleep on your face? It looks odd."

"Did I sleep-?" Tony cut off mid-sentence, trying to contain himself. "No," he replied evenly. "I did not sleep on my face. Did you..?" he began his retort, scanning the Norse deity for a physical defect to centre it on. Thor looked on, befuddled, as Tony wracked his brain. Eventually he gave up. "Goddammit!" he cried. "Why'd you have to be so goddamn beautiful?"

Thor frowned. "I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you alright?"

He sighed. "Yes. _No_. Thor, someone vandalised me last night." Thor's frown deepened but then lifted when his eyes suddenly found the source of the problem. He pressed his lips together into a thin line. Tony's eyes narrowed. "If you laugh, I will have you evicted."

Thor inhaled deeply and schooled his features with limited success but commendable effort. "I wouldn't dream of it," he claimed, his blue eyes glimmering. "Is there anything I can do?"

Tony looked up at the tall blond. "Yes. You can help me uncover the culprit and bring them to justice."

Thor allowed the smile that was fighting to take over his face to creep in. "Very well," he agreed. "Who do you suspect?"

"Everyone," Tony replied darkly.

Tony scrutinised the crime scene, i.e. his pillow. "I can't see anything!" he said, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips. "How is that possible?"

"Perhaps the crime was committed elsewhere," Thor suggested helpfully.

Tony gave him a scathing look. "You're suggesting that not only did someone manage to shave me without waking me up, but that they picked me up, moved me God knows where, _then_ shaved me, then brought me back to my own bed like nothing had happened?" He dropped his sceptical expression. "That would be genius. But who would go to the trouble?"

"I would not have trouble moving you," Thor pointed out.

Tony eyed him. "Is that a confession?"

"No," he replied quickly. "As you know, I was not here."

"Yes… So you say…" he murmured, scanning the room for any signs of disturbance.

"Why did you _not_ awake to this?" Thor asked.

Tony snapped his fingers. "I must have been sedated," he said. "There are plenty of sedatives in the infirmary. There may be fingerprints. Let's go!"

Thor and Tony stood frowning at the medicine cabinet door. "Are you sure?" Tony checked.

"Yes, sir," replied Jarvis.

They went on frowning. "There must be a mistake," decided Thor.

"They're the only prints," Tony stated. "Nothing else makes sense." He paused for dramatic effect, and spoke with an air of gravitas. "I've been pranked by Captain America."

Thor's frown deepened and he gestured at the cabinet. "He was at the conference with me," he insisted.

"Why else would he take them?" challenged Tony.

"Perhaps we ought to ask him," Thor suggested and, knowing Tony's policy on hesitation, turned to leave the infirmary but was stopped by Tony's voice.

"Jarvis, tell Steve he's needed in the infirmary," he ordered. "Tell him it's an emergency."

"Yes, sir."

Thor crossed his arms. "I do not consider it wise to lie to the Captain."

"Call it a drill," Tony placated off-hand.

"I'm given to understand that a drill is a boring tool, I fail to see the comparison," Thor admitted.

Tony thought about this. "Okay. How about: it's boring waiting to find out how and why I've been victimised by the world's most ethical man, so I'm speeding things up a bit."

Thor's blue eyes narrowed with suspicion; a look that was obviously slightly contagious this morning. "I suspect you are making fun, which is also unwise. However, I will forgive you, since your face is utterly ridiculous and must wound your pride significantly."

Tony blinked. He was already in the infirmary. Where were the burn treatment supplies? His train of thought was abruptly cut off when a tall blond burst through the infirmary doors and froze at the peaceful scene. An expression of confusion furrowed Steve's brow. "What's the emergency?" he asked.

"Hells _bells _that was fast!" exclaimed Tony, "Where _were _you?"

"I was three floors down," he replied, still baffled. "The elevators are too slow so I took the stairs- Tony, _what's wrong?_"

"Three floors down," Tony mumbled. "Well, that's… impressive. Well done. Should we ever have a medical emergency and require your assistance, we know we can count on you to be there in a hot second," he declared.

Steve's ready-for-action stance began to falter. "You… Was this a drill?"

"_What is a drill?_" Thor asked himself quietly, distracting Steve momentarily. The supersoldier swiftly returned his focus to Tony.

"Since when do you instigate drills?" he asked.

He shrugged, nonchalant. "Just recently. While you're here though, would you mind telling me why your fingerprints are on the door of this cabinet where we keep the sedatives?"

Steve looked at Thor, but received no help there. "I'm sorry, Tony, I can't tell you that."

"AHA!" cried Tony, startling both other men. "And why is that?"

"It would betray the confidence of a friend," said Steve.

"Oh yeah? _Which _friend?" Tony grilled him.

Steve hesitated. "Before I answer that, can I ask _you _a question?"

"Sure, shoot."

"Why is your beard drawn on?"

Tony glared death rays at him. "When I find out, I will let you know."

Steve raised an intrigued eyebrow. "Okay, well, if you want to know about the cabinet, you'd better ask Clint."

"_Clint_, eh?" queried Tony, ponderously stroking his… _Dammit! _ "Wait, I can't ask him, he's in Africa," he realised.

"They should be back by tonight," said Steve. "Guess you'll just have to wait."

Tony glowered. So much for cutting out the hanging around. Attack of the instant karma…

Clint punched in the code at the door of his suite and let himself into the dark living area, dropping his kit bag on the floor. A lamp in the living room switched on and Clint snatched up a pencil from the table by the door and launched it at the figure reclining in an armchair, its hand still on the lamp switch. "Hello, Cl- Ahh!" the figure cried out, diving to the floor as the pencil buried itself in the back of the chair. The intruder turned to look at the cause of his near-death experience. He took on a sheepish expression. "Okay, maybe I didn't think that through so well…"

"Tony?" Clint relaxed marginally. His readiness to fight to the death was replaced by confused exasperation. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" claimed Tony passionately, before realising it made no sense. He guessed he was getting a little carried away with all the accusations. He got to his feet, waving his hands in dismissal. "Uh… No, forget that. What I mean is: I know about the sedatives," he told him dramatically, his voice heavy with the implication.

Clint scratched the back of his head absently, thinking. "Sedatives? I don't know what you're talking about. Listen, it's been a long day; could we leave whatever this is to- Hey, what happened to your face?" he noticed suddenly.

"No!" cried Tony, pointing at him from across the room. "Don't do that. Don't act all innocent, I know it was you, Steve told me it was you who wanted the sedatives. I came here to ask why? What could I possibly have done to you to make you shave my beard off and draw this on instead? Huh? And how did you do it? You weren't even supposed to be here last night, you were-"

Tony was interrupted when Clint threw his head back and burst out laughing. The archer leaned back against the table for support, slapping his leg. Tony was left to stand there watching as his teammate helplessly rode a wave of hysteria. Tony cleared his throat in an effort to cut in but it had no effect. Clint attempted to speak but got no further than "Someone… Someone…" He dissolved in hysterics before even half completing a sentence, but Tony was getting the picture.

"You didn't do this, did you?" he stated more than asked.

"Oh, man, I wish I had," Clint managed to say breathlessly, still giggling. He drew his fingers across his eyes to rid them of the moisture.

"Well then what were the sedatives for?" asked Tony, getting frustrated.

"I haven't used any sedatives."

"But Steve's prints were on the cabinet! And when I asked him about it, he told me to ask _you_."

Clint's amusement was finally easing off as he squinted in thought. Suddenly he nodded knowingly. "Ah…"

"Ah, what?" sighed Tony.

"Last week," said Clint. "Look, Tony, there's a reason Steve didn't come out and tell you himself, I don't exactly advertise this…"

"Okay. I won't say anything," Tony prompted impatiently.

"Alright, well, ever since Loki, you know, got inside my head… there've…" he searched for the right words. "There've been some side effects."

Tony forgot to be impatient. "What kind of side effects?"

"Every once in a while, I wake up in the middle of the night kind of… confused. And, as you can imagine for someone with my training, that can be dangerous," he explained.

Tony frowned faintly, turning his gaze to a random spot on the ceiling. "Are you telling me you have a nocturnal tendency towards occasional homicidal rampages?"

"No!" Clint denied. Then thought about it. "Well…"

"And you didn't think this was something your teammates needed to know?" Tony queried.

"They do know; well, Steve and Natasha know. They're on top of it," he assured Tony, who didn't look entirely convinced.

"It's been well over a year," said Tony. "How could the rest of us not know about this?"

"It hasn't happened very often," replied Clint, "and it's getting less frequent. It's just last week, I had a particularly bad one and they couldn't talk me round so they kind of had to tranq me. It's a little embarrassing."

"A little embarrassing? Not deeply concerning for the other people sleeping under the same roof?" Tony asked.

"I'm hardly a match for the Black Widow and Captain America in that condition," said Clint. "And they get alerted as soon as Jarvis picks up on it so…" He shrugged. "I'm not worried. Neither are they."

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ignorance really is bliss," he muttered. "Fine. Okay. So I'm back at square one. That's just great."

"Sorry," Clint grinned, not looking sorry at all. "Let me know how it goes."

He sighed heavily. "Yeah, yeah."

He retreated to the mid-sized lab on Floor 20, where his friend, colleague and confidante Bruce was still beavering away with something he had in a series of petri dishes. He looked up from his microscope when Tony walked in and leaned back in his chair, smothering his mouth with one hand. His eyes sparkled. Tony pouted dejectedly and plonked himself down in the nearest chair. "I've had a bad day."

"Have you?" Bruce politely enquired, his amusement simmering just under the surface of his voice.

"Yes. I've been violated. And worse, I've been bested," he admitted morosely.

Bruce frowned, musing, "Most people would think that being 'violated' is worse…" When he saw the way Tony was looking at him, he trailed off, looking sheepish. "Nevermind."

"I don't get it," Tony claimed, ignoring Bruce's faux pas. "Hardly anyone was even here last night. The surveillance has been scrubbed by some genius-level hacker and Jarvis's programming has been interfered with somehow; there's absolutely no evidence that it happened in my room which suggests that I was sedated and moved but when I looked into that, it only led to Clint, who had nothing to do with it which means that whoever did it must've worn gloves but _who? _Like I said, hardly anyone was here last night and I haven't done anything to anyone just recently so why now? It makes no sense! It's like someone did it for no good reason and I don't even know anyone like that!"

Bruce let a silence fall between them, before gently breaching it. "Except..?"

Tony blinked. "Except what?"

"The only person you know who does things for no good reason is..?" he prompted like a patient teacher.

He shrugged at a loss. "I don't know… Justin Hammer's stylist? What are you getting at?" Bruce said nothing, but as Tony sat there absorbing the way the other man was looking at him, he suddenly pointed at himself in shock. "_Me?!_ What are you talking about? I always have my reasons!"

"I'm not saying you don't, I'm just saying you don't always have _good _reasons," Bruce replied.

Tony was flabbergasted. "Well, what does that have to do with anything anyway? It's not like _I _did this." They gazed at each other for a moment, their attitudes unchanging. "Bruce, I didn't do this!" he cried, stunned.

"What am I working with right now?" asked Bruce.

Tony considered getting up and walking out but instead closed his eyes and exhaled, "_What?_" Bruce indicated the slide in his microscope and the lines of petri dishes on the bench between them, as though that's what Tony hadn't understood. Tony clenched and relaxed his fists, exercising his currently short supply of patience. "I don't know. What are you working on?"

"I've already told you," said Bruce, to Tony's surprise.

"No, you haven't."

"Last night," Bruce insisted, nodding with infuriating calm. "You came in here like you did just now, you asked me what I was up to, we talked about it and you did something without good reason."

Tony's consternation was fast fading. Bruce had the answers he'd been looking for. The time had come. "Okay," he said, sounding more sane than he had since he'd discovered his situation, "I'm listening."

That seemed to please Bruce. Perhaps it was Tony's uncharacteristic submission. In any case, the doctor turned to face him more fully. He stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles, and likewise crossed his arms comfortably across his chest. "In spite of myself, I've become friends with a couple of chemists who work at Shield. Just recently, they've been struggling to fine tune an amnesia formula they can give their undercover agents."

Tony's eyes widened. "Amnesia?"

"Yeah. I mean they've got plenty of methods for removing memories but they wanted something undetectable, discreet and fast-acting that could erase extremely specific lengths of time. The idea was that agents could receive and act on instructions and then erase all knowledge of them to guard against new interrogation techniques." He shrugged. "They asked me if I could take a look."

"And I took this stuff," Tony inferred. The question 'why?' was heavily implied.

Bruce nodded again. "One of the problems is that something like this requires human test subjects. I thought I had a solution but I couldn't test it before sending it back to them, and that's where you came in. I'd like to be clear here that I in no way suggested you try it. You insisted. You were quite adamant."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like me…"

"You decided the best way to test the durability of the memory loss without actually subjecting you to interrogation would be to do something that you yourself would feel driven to uncover."

The weight of the mystery evaporated and for the first time all day, he relaxed into his seat with a smile growing on his face. It was a prank. It was _his _prank. _His _joke. And now he was in on it, it was finally funny. The evil genius that had finally overthrown the great Tony Stark was none other than… the even greater Tony Stark. It had been a long time since he'd had to stand back and admire his own brilliance. This crooked ink beard on his face was not a Beard of Shame. It was a Beard of Victory!

Bruce was smiling at him. "You're not sad about you beard anymore?"

"No. In fact," he announced, standing, "I have decided to leave my brain to science. I'm having it written into my will. I must be studied for the good of mankind."

Bruce nodded, going back to his microscope. "I quite agree."

The end.


End file.
